White House grows on bud­ding en­tre­pre­neur, 11

USA: The president got what you might call a grass­roots dis­play of sup­port at the White House, wel­com­ing an 11-year-old Vir­ginia boy who of­fered to help cut the lawn.

President Don­ald Trump high-fived Frank Gi­ac­cio, who lives in the Wash­ing­ton sub­urb of Falls Church.

The White House says Frank wrote to Trump to say he ad­mires the president’s busi­ness acu­men and runs his own neigh­bour­hood lawn-care busi­ness.

Frank was so fo­cused on push­ing the lawn mower, he didn’t no­tice Trump had emerged to greet him un­til the president was next to him in the Rose Garden.

Trump says Frank is “the fu­ture of the coun­try” and will soon be “very fa­mous”.

Frank said he wants to be a Navy Seal, to which Trump ex­claimed: “He’ll make it.”

Han­ni­bal let­ter

USA: A Penn­syl­va­nia man has been or­dered to stand trial on charges he threat­ened a judge by send­ing her a let­ter in­clud­ing a pic­ture of can­ni­bal Han­ni­bal Lecter.

Gregg Tchirkow, aged 38, claimed at a hear­ing this week that the pic­ture was a “cry for help” and a way to tell the court he needed psy­chi­atric help when tran­si­tion­ing from prison to free­dom.

Lecter is the crim­i­nally in­sane psy­chi­a­trist in the film The Si­lence of the Lambs.

West­more­land County Judge Mea­gan Bi­lik-De­fazio sent Tchirkow to prison in 2015 for grow­ing mar­i­juana in his home.

Pros­e­cu­tors con­tend the let­ter was sent in re­tal­i­a­tion and to ter­rorise the judge.

Tchirkow promised to fight the charges at trial, say­ing he knew he was “doomed from the be­gin­ning” be­cause a judge is the al­leged vic­tim.

Rep­tile re­treat

SCOT­LAND: A gi­ant iguana more than 5ft long is be­ing cared for by an­i­mal wel­fare ex­perts af­ter he was res­cued from a lay-by.

The Scot­tish SPCA was called out on Tues­day af­ter a man found the rep­tile in a lay-by next to the A702 in the Bor­ders. The rep­tile is now be­ing cared for at the Scot­tish SPCA’s cen­tre in La­nark­shire where staff have named him Iggy.

Mrs Fris­bee

ENG­LAND: A seal who got a Fris­bee trapped round her neck has fi­nally had it re­moved af­ter half a year.

The At­lantic grey seal, nick­named Mrs Fris­bee, be­came weaker as the plas­tic disc cut into her as she grew, but no-one could get near her to help. Mrs Fris­bee was fi­nally caught at Horsey beach, around 12 miles north of Great Yar­mouth, Nor­folk, on Thurs­day and taken to an RSPCA cen­tre where she is re­cov­er­ing.

Peter Ansell, chair­man of the vol­un­teer group, said: “We’ve been aware of it for get­ting on for six months, but have been un­able to catch it.

“My guess is a fam­ily was play­ing with the fris­bee at the wa­ter’s edge, wind blow­ing, and it’s gone into the sea.

“They’ve lost it and that ended up float­ing there ‘til poor Mrs Fris­bee stuck her head through it.”

Chug snug

ENG­LAND: A tiny dog had to be res­cued by a spe­cial­ist fire­fighter when it got its head stuck in a bis­cuit jar.

The pug and chi­huahua cross-breed puppy — known as a chug — got into trou­ble as it tried to eat up the fi­nal crumbs in the jar at its home in Wavell Road, Southamp­ton, Hamp­shire.

An­i­mal res­cue tac­ti­cal ad­viser An­ton Phillips said: “It was strange be­ing able to see the an­i­mal’s dole­ful ex­pres­sion through the glass.”

Fight for night sky

USA: Tourists head­ing to cen­tral Idaho will be in the dark if lo­cal of­fi­cials get their way.

The first In­ter­na­tional Dark Sky Re­serve in the US would fill a chunk of a sparsely pop­u­lated re­gion that con­tains night skies so pris­tine that in­ter­stel­lar dust clouds are vis­i­ble in the Milky Way.Nearby towns, county and fed­eral of­fi­cials, and a con­ser­va­tion group are work­ing to ap­ply to des­ig­nate 1,400sq miles as a re­serve, but they will have to limit light pol­lu­tion.

Tall tail

USA: Here’s a very tall tail: Two record-set­ting cats are liv­ing to­gether near Detroit.

Arc­turus Alde­baran Pow­ers holds the Guin­ness World Records mark for tallest do­mes­tic cat, mea­sur­ing about 19in, and house­mate Cygnus Reg­u­lus Pow­ers holds the record for the do­mes­tic cat with the long­est tail, at more than 17in.

The cats, both about two years old, live in Farmington Hills with Will and Lau­ren Pow­ers.

Noisy nin­jas

USA: Po­lice say two peo­ple dressed as nin­jas broke into

a New Jersey apart­ment build­ing and set sev­eral fires.

Ne­wark po­lice of­fi­cials say the uniden­ti­fied man and woman broke in through a sec­ond-floor apart­ment. It was re­ported that there is video show­ing the two ex­it­ing through a side en­trance and run­ning off down a hill.

Res­i­dent Melissa Di­tonto says the alarm alerted ev­ery­one to the fire and many peo­ple evac­u­ated. Po­lice say the build­ing’s sprin­kler sys­tem quickly doused the flames. No one was in­jured.